If you’re reading this blog, thank you! It’s always a nice morale boost to see that someone has decided to read about my efforts to combine guava paste and cheese into a manageable ride food. I write it mainly for myself – it’s more of a diary than public entertainment so please forgive me for the occasional lapse into utter self-indulgence.
I’ve been titivating, tweaking and tarting up Priscilla since she arrived. New bar tape, a new saddle and some fiddling with position. She’ll be getting some proper racing tyres very soon, which should be faster than the sturdy training shoes she currently wears.
Today we broke my one and only RWGPS segment record! Woo! Go us! It’s just an obscure stretch of lightly trafficked Devon lane, but it’s mine, my very own. My precious. I set the record on my Giant Propel in 2022 when I was in fine fettle. I don’t recall the exact weather conditions, but there was probably a favourable wind. Me and Priscilla haven’t exactly smashed it, we knocked off a handful of seconds, but it’s still a sign that I’m in decent form and hopefully improving.
Bear in mind that Priscilla is a full-on TT bike, with deep section rims and an aggressive aero-bar position. She absolutely should be faster than the Giant, at least on the flat. When the road gets even slightly lumpy I suspect she’s a bit slower. On the Giant I can muscle up (very) short hills on the hoods, but Priscilla’s bullhorns aren’t ideal for that. I might look into fitting her with some narrow drop bars instead – they would give me better leverage and some more positions.
With luck I’ll find out how much fast she is over a proper TT course tomorrow. Average speed for my segment of glory was bang on 40kmh and if I can hold that for 10 miles (the segment is 2.75 miles) that equates to 24:08, which would smash my absolute PB by about 50 seconds and annihilate my record for this year by over two minutes. Very much not guaranteed and I’m not just making preemptive excuses about weather conditions. We’ll see…
**** EDIT ****
Well, not a complete disaster. Managed 26:36, so about 0:30 slower than last time. There was a brisk tailwind, but the course goes up and down the same stretch of road, so for about a third of the distance it was a headwind. Only did a very perfunctory warmup and then spent 15 minutes chatting (and cooling down again) before starting, which meant I blew up within the first kilometer. Struggled to get my breath back, heart rate well into the red, where it stayed for the entire ride and generally feeling a bit crap. Kept on going, but at a reduced pace and not giving it full beans, because I had no beans to give. Under the circumstances my time wasn’t too bad really and I’m optimistic about improving significantly once I get my shit together. Also, according to people who know these things, this course is quite a bit slower than the old Budlake course, due to the various turns and junctions. They reckon about a minute slower. That cheers me greatly, because I’d assumed Budlake, with it’s horrible rough surface, was harder and that my current times ought to be faster.
Well Chuffed Cycling 